Ramadan on Zoom: A reminder that we are alone before God

Voices of the Pandemic features people in the Seattle area on the frontlines of the coronavirus outbreak in their own words.

Religious gatherings aren’t currently allowed in Washington state because of the pandemic. For Muslims, that’s especially hard right now, because this is the holy month of Ramadan.

Aneelah Afzali is the executive director of the American Muslim Empowerment Network, a program of the Muslim Association of Puget Sound.

She told us what Ramadan means to her in the time of coronavirus.

The blessings of Ramadan are such for Muslims that any good deed you do during the month of Ramadan is multiplied significantly. And then, not only that, you have certain opportunities in Ramadan, because we are told that the forces that normally tempt us to do wrong things, to do bad things, that those forces are kept away from us during this month of Ramadan.

It is our training program for the whole rest of the year.

I would feel like an absolute loser if I did not take maximum advantage of this blessed month.

We just had a virtual service, a virtual khutbah, or sermon, given to us via Zoom. It felt very disconnected.

I mean, even though we are connected through the internet, it's still a very disconnecting kind of experience because virtually, you don't participate in a prayer together.

And it's that prayer together, when you're standing shoulder to shoulder with your fellow community members, your sisters, your brothers, family and friends, when you're moving together in sort of harmony in the different prayer movements…

My heart is already aching for having that sense of connection.

It’s a very different feeling when I was here alone in my house. It's really disconnecting and it's really sad, but it also reminds me that we are alone before God.

And maybe this Ramadan, because of the sense of isolation that everybody is experiencing with quarantine, hopefully it will allow us to really connect to God more than we might otherwise when we sort of rely on community.

We're collecting first-person accounts of the pandemic. If you have a story about a moment when you faced something new, or a moment when you faced a difficult decision with no clear path forward, we'd like to hear from you.

Alec Cowan composed music for this story.

Also check out KUOW's conversation with Aneelah Afzali on our series, "Are we going to be OK?"